


Challenging the manifestations of the Void

by Hedonick



Series: BfA/SL: Interludes [4]
Category: World of Warcraft, World of Warcraft - Various Authors
Genre: Gen, Lakeshire, Ny’alotha, Raiding, Redridge Mountains, World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:35:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28321722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hedonick/pseuds/Hedonick
Summary: While his brothers are still occupied with their personal problems, Orthorin Dawncaller and his platoon of Alliance army members take up the fight against the Old God who threatens Azeroth. Inside Ny’alotha, the Waking City, they have to prove themselves against the Hivemind, a powerful minion of N’Zoth who still bars the way of Azeroth’s champions to the Corruptor. How will their fight turn out and how is its outcome going to influence the soldiers’ future?
Series: BfA/SL: Interludes [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2041546





	Challenging the manifestations of the Void

**Author's Note:**

> Dear reader,  
> Welcome to the fourth part of my second series, which takes place after the events mentioned in the previous series (BfA: Biografies); in between Patch 8.3 and Shadowlands Pre-Patch 9.0.1.  
> This time the story will focus on my monk to establish his character some more and to further set his story up for what is to come in the Shadowlands…  
> To prevent some misunderstanding let me warn you: Orthorin’s episode includes a little time skip in the middle… it begins somewhat before N’Zoth’s defeat and then continues after the Old God’s fall. The attentive reader will surely notice this, but to those going through the text a little faster it could otherwise become confusing. Enjoy!

As often, Orthorin had adopted his meditative stance; he held his eyes closed, hands braced on his knees with their palms up, thumb and index finder touching, while he hovered cross-legged a few finger-width above the floor. Although, to describe the inexplicably floating platform of the walkway beneath him and his troop as _floor_ was generous.

They were all gathered in the so-called preparation area that was currently set up right in front of the passage to the Hive, deep inside Ny’alotha, the Waking City. Balustrades had been placed at the edges of the platform, to keep heedless souls from falling off, but the improvised construction did little to convey a feeling of security. Right beneath them was the Maw of Gor’ma located and whoever felt daring enough could stare down into the hole, which was lined with infinite pointy fangs.

As if the general view wasn’t disturbing enough already: a landscape bathed in red and dark purple, formed out of peaked mountains that sometimes suddenly got entangled by immense tentacles, unperturbed in their touch by the streams of red magma, which were flowing down the mountainsides into the seemingly endless, boiling hot lake filling up the valley floors. And then, directly in front of them, connected by the floating walkways, the bulky stone structures of the City itself, dominated by geometric shapes and hovering obelisks.

Somewhere far off in the background of the monk’s awareness, the whispers chattered in excited anticipation, easily held at bay, while he once again mentally went through the most important aspects of the fight which – in all likelihood – awaited them.

When Tek’ris is in control, keep them together, if it’s Ka’zir, keep them apart; focus the smaller bugs, especially the transformed Drones and Reavers, interrupt boss casts; avoid the Acidics; avoid the puddles, regardless of their color; dispel poison, spare the strongest healing spells for accidents and overlaps.

He wasn’t as deeply into his meditation as he gave the impression though, and he still listened vigilantly to his surroundings. Very distant, the echoing sounds of fighting; commanded shouts, from time to time a scream of pain, the roaring of battle pets and the hissing of the Aqir, the clanking of weapons and the swooshing of cast spells. A little closer the tense discussions of the support forces of the current fighting unit could be heard, carried further than normal by the otherwise oppressive, unnatural silence of the place; mostly spoken in crude Orcish, but Orthorin could also hear some scraps of the melodic Zandali and – of course – Thalassian. He couldn’t make out the exact words, since the speakers were too far off, but he could imagine their topics: comments on how one or the other raid member kept up in the fight, the accuracy of a past combat maneuver, maybe even the placing of some bets.

Which brought Orthorin’s attention back to his own troop. He’d forbidden his soldiers to wager on the outcome of fights – at least openly: in his opinion, such behavior was dishonorable and only spurred on the anyway present distrust between the Alliance and Horde raiding parties. They should all wish for the success of the combatants, without any regard for their faction affiliation. To overcome these stronger minions of the Old God, so they could finally reach N’Zoth himself, wasn’t some sort of competitive sports event, which justified such dalliances. It already happened often enough that despite the mutual goals of the factions, some soldiers of the Alliance and the Horde got into small skirmishes, which had to be broken apart by superiors.

In the beginning, some voices had recommended to split the two faction’s efforts completely: to deploy the Alliance forces exclusively to Uldum, and the Horde forces solely to the Vale of Eternal Blossoms… or the other way around, only granting them access to the Waking City whenever its entryway appeared in the corresponding region. But the thought of being more or less sealed off from actively observing the progression of the enemy faction for a whole week hadn’t suited many voters either. And so they had reached another compromise: alternately an Alliance party and then a Horde party were given the chance to prove themselves against the enemy they currently faced inside Ny’alotha. This way, they indeed had to put up with sporadic, harmless skirmishes, but at least the overall atmosphere between the factions stayed relatively calm.

The steady, rhythmic rasping off to his right told the monk that his second in command was pursuing his own collecting method; whetting the old blade he now always carried to battle solely for this purpose. Orthorin smiled inwardly, remembering the worgen’s flustered reaction when he had revealed this idea to the void elf.

When they had first met back aboard the military ship, which had delivered them to Kul Tiras, Blackwood had been known in wide sections of the army as an unreliable and irritable wastrel, something of which the monk – as a new recruit – hadn’t been aware of. During the journey across the ocean, the void elf had soon noticed the worgen’s general discomfort, and had pressed him on the matter, unperturbed by the first hostile demeanor of the feral warrior. Since the void elf had been equally treated as an outsider by the other soldiers, they had nevertheless established some kind of solidarity and had eventually gotten into conversation with each other. Orthorin had soon learned that the worgen often struggled with his feral instincts. Their suppression seemed to be far more difficult to him than to others of his species. Since the void elf was quite familiar with such a problem, he’d suggested to Valentian to find a method similar to the ren’endal, which could help him control his savagery. The worgen hadn’t taken well to meditation, but together they had eventually discovered an alternative: during the whetting of his weapons, the warrior always felt an unusual calm about himself. Since even a frequently used sword only needed limited sharpening, the worgen had come up with the idea to always carry an additional old blade, which he could use for this ritual, without having to pay any attention to its ruination by excessive treatment with a grindstone. During the whole course of the Fourth War, the warrior had generally become far more self-disciplined, but especially before a battle, he still fell back on this method to calm himself.

Slightly further off, the monk could hear different talks going on between the rest of the members of his raid party, who had spread themselves across the improvised benches behind their superiors, or on the stairs which lead down to the central crossroad of the walkways. Quick eavesdropping showed Orthorin, that – as anticipated – no wagers were going on. Instead there were either serious discussions of their past exercises, which had prepared them for today, or – in contrast – cheering banter.

Still chuckling from the last joke herself, Quickbrew, the dwarf shaman, interrupted the groups laughter, flicking her fingers: “Wait, wait... I’ve got another one! Why do hunters get smashed in bars?” A short silence followed. “Because they’re always multi-shotting!”

Once again, everyone broke into guffaw and slapped their knees, except the draenei hunter Venaan. “Very funny, but I bet you don’t know how many dwarves it takes to screw in a light bulb!”

“Oh! I know”, the party’s gnome warlock intervened with her high pitched voice and sighed, “I already heard that one often enough with gnomes instead of dwarves.” She noisily poked her tongue out at the male draenei. “Of course at least ten, otherwise they can’t even reach the ceiling, right?!”

“Actually... no”, Venaan corrected, with a noticeable hint of embarrassment to his voice, “Only two. One to hold the light bulb in place and the other to drink until the room starts spinning.”

This time, everyone laughed wholeheartedly.

Orthorin kept on listening to the next few jokes, automatically trying to find out the right answers before they got revealed, but he eventually stopped himself. He never got it right, approaching the matter in a far too serious way. He would have preferred real riddles to those conundrums. Which reminded him of Naethir, who had by now reportedly returned from his own riddle hunt, and his visit to the encampment the week before.

The memory alone reawakened a muffled touch of anger in the monk: The picture of his older brother, strutting into _his_ territory after all their prior exchanges, trying to rebuke him like a father would do it with a misbehaving child. Exactly that and nothing else the clumsy attempt to persuade him to join the death knight on his journey had been. Why couldn’t he respect his choice? They were better off without each other anyways, if Naethir thought he was only keen on hurting him and Saew.

The feeling of fingernails piercing into the skin of his palms made the monk become aware of his unconsciously clenched fists. He made himself relax his hands once more, but another breach in his self-control made itself noticeable in the next instant. _You really should_ _have_ _be_ _en_ _more polite to him. He is your older brother after all and the new head of your family, right? You should follow his orders. He’s wiser than you!_ The monk pointedly disregarded the lulling whispers. As it was the case most of the time, they only spouted utter nonsense yet again. _Wiser_ , for sure! He scoffed in thought, wisdom was usually accompanied by competence, but that was something he hadn’t seen displayed by his brother in a long time, by neither of them actually, not regarding anything that was important.

Orthorin shifted his attention back towards the passage to the Hive once more. The distant sounds of fighting had suddenly changed; grown frantic. He opened his eye and decisively rose. The voices of his own troop fell silent in reaction to his movement, and – as expected – in the next moment, the support forces of the Horde raiding party hurriedly prepared themselves and then rushed ahead, into the adjacent room, to safeguard the retreat of their party members. This also signalized to Orthorin and his party that their turn to fight would be up soon.

A short glance over his shoulder showed the monk to his contentment the discipline of his troop; his direct command wasn’t even needed, they were already settling their temporary occupations and were instead assuming a battle ready formation.

In front of them, the first Horde fighters appeared out of the entrance to the building complex; those still on their feet supporting the ones with minor wounds through an offered shoulder and fully carrying a few others. They were met by the medical team, who had been assembled for this purpose. Whoever could be brought out onto the walkways was over the most dangerous part of the retreat. The two Aqir bosses, who managed the Hivemind wouldn’t follow them outside; only inside their domain they profited from the unbreakable spells woven by N’Zoth, which granted them the swift regeneration of their life force out of battle and made them stronger, the more enemies they faced and the longer the fight continued. That spell was also the reason why the Alliance and the Horde didn’t just charge N’Zoth’s minions with all the forces they could muster at once; this would only strengthen their foes to a point where no mortal could stand against them anymore. Instead, they operated in parties between ten and thirty fighters, with an additional four to fifteen as a support backup in case the continuation of the fight turned hopeless.

Orthorin reached for the Cranedancer’s Staff he’d leaned against the stand beside him and swung it onto his back. The traditional pandaren gourd fixed to it rocked back and forth wildly, but was kept from bumping into the wooden staff or its carrier by the magic power coursing through the weapon. The monk’s tentacles prickled faintly at the contact with the item, the reaction presumably triggered by the enchantment he had made Warpweaver Ezil cast upon it back in Boralus. Although, the caster staff’s now void-blue appearance was merely of a cosmetic nature and didn’t hold any actual power of the Void. It was an unusual gimmick he’d allowed himself, but Orthorin appreciated how his weapon now united the cultural heritage of his race and his class, reminding everybody that looked upon it of who and what he was.

At the monk’s call, the rest of his raiding party fell in behind him and they set off in the direction of the entrance to the Hive. While they passed the members of the Horde party who now received medical attention, picked up snatches of talk reminded Orthorin off how easily the theoretically plain fight against the two Aqir bosses could turn ugly within seconds.

“That stupid hunter pet!”, an undead rogue snarled, staring angrily from his cot on the floor into the direction of an obviously embarrassed vulpera, while he pressed a hand against the unnaturally dangling other arm.

An exhausted blood elf paladin shook his head, explaining to the pandaren monk from the medical team: “He was quite low on health already, since we healers were almost oom, with that debuff on top of it….”

“Stuff like that can ‘appen. Give ‘im a break, mon... it was an accident!”, a troll hunter addressed an angry female demon hunter in a calming voice, who was growling at the vulpera from another direction, while an orc shaman tended to her horribly mangled hip.

“Maybe we’ll eat riverbeast for supper!”, a goblin mage called to a nightborne warlock Health Funneling his Wrathguard, sounding as if she meant the proposal only half in jest.

“The beast pushed him right back into the Nullification Blast. I’ve seen it! He would have easily dodged it otherwise. It wasn’t Grahlun’s fault!” Casting worried glances over her shoulder into the direction of a still unconsciously lying mag’har orc warrior who was looked after by two healers at the same time a female orc death knight in badly battered armor – most likely the second tank – spoke to a sin’dorei shadow priest, who was somberly scribbling in a note book and looked like the leader of the party.

Putting down her pen, the priestess nodded in consent and remarked: “That Rebirth still should have come faster; the melees didn’t stand a chance with the frontliner down.”

A sad looking tauren druid – probably more disturbed by all the resentment around him, than his party’s defeat – lifted his gaze at Orthorin’s passing: “Good luck! May the Earth Mother be with you.”

The monk nodded respectfully in acknowledgment and strode into the darkness of the gateway, followed directly by Valentian Blackwood, the main tank of his own troop and then the rest of his fighters.

–.o.O.o.–

The two Aqir gave a insectile hiss as soon as they stepped out of the passage. Orthorin moved slightly to one side at the top of the stairs, giving space to the others to go first, already weaving some Renewing Mist and sending it out to the worgen and Merea Bladebreeze. Next was Gert Townsend, who just finished casting his Beacon of Light and his Beacon of Faith upon the two frontliners.

“Pull in five...four...”, Orthorin announced, while the warrior, the demon hunter and the paladin stepped down the stairs, “Three… two… one….”

A quick Tiger’s Lust from the monk on Townsend gave the other healer a speed boost, so he could keep up with the frontliners, who now moved ahead quickly. While Valentian Charged at Ka’zir, Bladebreeze spontaneously transformed into her demon form for a brief moment, jumping with an Infernal Strike towards Tek’ris. Only a second later, Orthorin joined them with a Roll, casually grabbing his Jade Serpent Statue out of a void rift at he same time, to enhance his healing capabilities and placing it in the middle of the square platform they stood on.

“Melees on Ka’zir, ranges on Tek’ris for now”, Orthorin ordered reassuringly, when the other party members poured down the stairs. It wasn’t a new instruction, and for most of the fighters probably unnecessary, but the monk also knew that some people’s nerves were raw at the start of a fight, and they tended to forget the simplest things.

As soon as everyone was in place; melees at the boss and ranges casting their first spells, the next step of the plan was up. “Bl… Hero!”, he yelled, mentally biting his tongue after the almost-slip. That the party-wide short time buff was called differently by the Alliance than by the Horde was still something he couldn’t quite wrap his head around. Bloodlust was just so much more accurate. Maybe he should simply switch to Warp? Time Warp at least was named the same in both factions.

He decisively tabled the question, but still heard Quickbrew’s benevolent chuckle, before the expected wave of power emanated from her. She threw up her hands, pigtails flapping, and released the massive spell that sent a shrill warning chime through their minds once it hit them.

“Stack. Drones and Ravager are coming.” Orthorin sent out another handful of Renewing Mists in between a Rising Sun Kick and a Blackout Kick directed at the two bosses, which were currently still tanked side by side. Blackwood would assume the announces regarding their positioning.

The little Aqir weren’t all dead yet and he was applying an Enveloping Mist to the gnome warlock, who was swarmed by the remaining insects, when a warning prickling began in the tentacles in-between his hair, as a reaction to the suddenly accumulating void energy in the room.

“Spread. Echoing Void soon.” He Rolled nimbly backwards, out of the throng, and then picked up on channeling his Soothing Mist on Valentian, right before – as predicted – a pool of shadows appeared around his feet. Despite his announcement, two of the ranged fighters ran panicky into the same direction. Orthorin reacted quickly, placing his Mists on the one and casting a Vivify on the other. The heal landed right on time, when the pools of void energy erupted, damaging everyone, but especially the two who had been standing near each other.

They still weren’t all healed up when the monk noticed wiggling eggs appearing to the left on the edge of the room out of the corner of his eye. “Acidics!”, he shouted, “Out of the way.” For once, his eye patch almost cost him dearly, since he had to turn sligthly to check the area to the right behind him, and he only managed to dodge out of the way of one rolling insect by a hair’s breadth.

His heart was still beating slightly faster than normal from the shock, when the six legged bug hit them all with a poisonous attack that shouldn’t have succeeded in the first place. In their hurry to get out of harms way, none of the melees had interrupted the Mind-Numbing Nova of the boss. Dazed, Orthorin started to cast a Vivify to bring several allies enveloped by his Mists back to a better health status, but then abandoned the spell, first Detoxing himself before recasting it.

“Dispel the healers first, casters next”, he advised, and – swiftly analyzing what just went wrong – amended: “And Alistair stays with Ka’zir permanently to Kick. Cloak if the Acidics can’t be dodged.”

“Roger!”, the worgen rogue called, briefly slipping deeper into the shadows to enhance his next attacks.

It still took several additional seconds before the roar of spells and arrows around the monk picked up their previous volume and flew in their usual intervals again, their creators unhindered by the influence of the poison.

They weren’t allowed to catch their breaths for long, because in the next instant, a few flying Aqir engaged into the fight, sending out painful waves of sound with their quickly beating wings.

“Darters have priority!”

The ranged damage dealers were quick to react, weakening the insects, and Orthorin managed to reach out in between his healing spells to apply a Touch of Death to one of them, which came by near him, killing it instantly.

More or less at the same time, their main tank’s voice boomed across the room: “Move Tek’ris!”

The demon huntress acted promptly, once again jumping through the air with an Infernal Strike, landing almost at the other side of the room, followed by the huge Aqir.

Screeching all around them announced the next wave of small insects to plague them.

“Stack. Blow them up and then focus the transformed Drone!” This time the monk didn’t find the time to hit some of his own damaging Kicks on the target. The health of the whole party was dwindling, even despite all the active heals over time and Quickbrew’s Healing Rain, which already soothed their aches.

They were still all stacked tightly, when the eggs appeared once more.

Orthorin yelled in alarm: “Spread!”, and most of the members of the raiding party around him only just started to move, when the havoc demon hunter had already catapulted himself backward with a Vengeful Retreat, allegedly out of harms way. His sudden presence near two of the eggs set them off balance though, and their usually straight pathway was upset.

Pained screams sounded all across the room and the acidic stench of poison rose, as multiple people got hit by the this time unpredictable trail of the insects. Several fighters went down – first among them also their hasty demon hunter, who had been overrun by the two projectiles next to him – and not all of them were able to rise once more after some common healing spells. Still slightly overwhelmed by the event and startled by the heavy damage spread across the whole party, the monk instinctively reacted when the already known prickling in his hair announced an additional problem.

“Stay apart, Void!”, he warned, sending his still poisoned allies into a scramble. They would never survive the wave of unleashed void energy on top of the still lingering effect of the poison, which severely weakened them. He breathed in deeply to collect his strength and then sent out his most powerful spell. The Revival did not only heal all party members for a good deal of health, it also cleansed the poison out of their systems. It, together with the Healing Tide by the shaman, was barely enough to keep them on their feet, when the void pools exploded beneath them and seconds later a hurtful wave of power emanated from the bosses, accompanying the swap of control over the Hivemind between them, followed by Blackwood’s call to bring the huge bugs near each other again.

Still feeling light-headed from the amount of mana he’d just spent on his spell, Orthorin realized that they had already used up more of their emergency heals up to that point than they had planned during their discussions of the battle tactics. The night elf Dewcloud had used her Divine Hymn earlier, so she would maybe recover enough to cast it again later. But now his own and Quick’s mightiest restoration magic was gone, too. That only left them with one other guaranteed big heal for the rest of the fight, which presumably wasn’t halfway over yet and would only get more dangerous the longer it went on. Not good. But it couldn’t have been helped, his spell was probably the only reason they hadn’t been forced into a retreat yet. He quickly adjusted their plans in his mind while they killed the next adds and dodged the following Acidics, this time without an accident.

“Quickbrew, we’ll use your Spirit Link next and we’ll both have to use more mana intense spells than usual to bridge the damage.”

The dwarf nodded her understanding, and Orthorin Rolled over next to Cotton, their Kul Tiran druid, simultaneously sending out more Mists. “Give your Innervate to Quick, when you can, I should soon have my Essence ready. You and Dewcloud will have to make up for our missing heals, until we’ve regenerated some mana. Withhold your Tranq for the next switch, though!”

The woman showed her consent, and Orthorin already considered to move back to his position, when a glance over his damage dealers made him focus on another trouble. He hesitated for a brief moment, then gave the instruction anyway: “And bring Talania back.”

Once again the druid complied. It was a risky decision; two of their less robust fighters had previously also been taken out by the miss-directed Acidics: a draenei mage and the void elf shadow priest. To use one of their few incredibly powerful spells, which could – something even his strongest magic hadn’t been able to achieve – restore the lost consciousness of someone during a fight, on another target than a frontliner or a healer wasn’t done often. In addition, usually the frost mage was the stronger of the two casters in question, hence it could look as if he preferred the void elf – kin to him – unfairly. But in this fight, she had an advantage on the draenei, since she could simultaneously damage their various foes with her spells over time. After her restoration by the druid, the priest quickly got back to her feet, embracing her shadow form and picking up the fight with a respectable presence of mind.

However, her additional damage wouldn’t solve the other issue, which now grew more and more apparent to Orthorin, and required his administration.

“Venaan, swap your attention to Ka’zir and help out our melees, they are struggling more than the ranges”, and if they wanted to have even a chance to actually bring down their foes, the two of them needed to fall at the same time. This, the earliest fights of some other raiding parties had shown clearly: they had first tried to single out one of the two bugs in an attempt to kill him quickly, but obviously the two bosses’ fates were intertwined, granting the one in peril of his life the ability to heal himself fully again, if the other didn’t find himself in the same condition.

The immediate change of direction, in which the arrows of the hunter flew, followed by the charge of his pets across the battlefield, confirmed his compliance as much as the – in concentration – mumbled: “Understood!”

Ignoring the screeches and threats of the Aquir bosses, a hissing of insectile wings announced the arrival of the next Darters, before their first hurtful sound waves even crossed the room.

“Focus the adds again… and spread, Echoing Void coming”, the monk gave the instructions, managing to sound far more calm then he felt, while he increased the speed of his spell weaving in pace with the mounting void energies in the room. Sending out Renewing Mists alternately with instant Vivifies in combination with his Soothing Mist and channeling his Essence Font, that darted into every direction to the members of his troop, Orthorin could feel the Drainage of his mana; an unpleasant burning feeling, spreading though his body. Usually he would have avoided such excessive casting, but the situation required it and so he only gritted his teeth, a quick glance into the direction of the shaman showing him a similar picture.

His and Quickbrew’s efforts weren’t in vain at least, their frantic casting of healing spells were accompanied by similarly alert movements of the other party members around them, scattering and avoiding the purple puddles successfully, while they still eliminated the flying insects, darting across the battlefield.

Despite the cooling effect of the Essence implemented to his necklace, Orthorin had to pause in his healing for a while when the burning sensation finally grew unbearable, just when Valentian’s voice boomed once more:

“Move Tek’ris!”

At the same time as the demon huntress pulled the taller of the two bosses with her across the battlefield, accompanied be the distressing power swap between them, clicking sounds all around them accompanied the arrival of another wave of Drones.

Cotton reacted swiftly, starting to channel and creating a tranquilizing field around her, which begun to restore everyone’s health. However, this time the bugs answered similarly quickly, changing their intentions and instead swarming into her direction.

“Drone!” The monk announced to the damage dealers, pointing at the transformed specimen, then cursed silently, realizing the danger but still feeling too exhausted to even cast a Life Cocoon on the other healer, to prevent her from being overrun by the small Drones. To win them at least some additional time under the influence of the Tranquility, he Rolled to the druid’s side and nimbly swept one of his legs low across the floor, stunning the nearest insects for a few seconds.

The robust woman still cried out in pain and faltered in her channeling when the remaining bugs fell upon her. The low but continuous flow of Soothing Mist, which the monk was finally able to manage, wasn’t quite enough to counteract the damage inflicted by the aggressive Aqir. He already feared the worst, when a Blessing of Protection from their holy paladin, followed by a Lay on Hands saved the restoration druid.

They still weren’t out of the woods, though. Quickbrew and Dewcloud struggled to stabilize their party members’ condition despite the druid’s powerful spell. Only after the barely timely defeat of the Volatile Drone, which had threatened to wipe out the whole party with its cast, the other troop members had finally the time to clean out the remaining adds, allowing them an ever so short breather and to refocus their attacks on the bosses.

“Acidics! Dodge them!”, Orthorin reminded everyone, when, seconds later, sprouting eggs warned them of the next challenge.

Not everyone was swift enough to comply, slowly but surely feeling the rising fatigue of the continuing fight. The monk already expected some of them to fall, when their holy priest was able to cast another Divine Hymn, granting the targets hit an unexpected boost of health. With that, though, their chances of surviving another switch of the Hivemind between the bosses were also as good as gone.

Sending out whatever Mists he could manage, Orthorin had no other choice but to believe in the strength of his troop to subdue the Aqir, before the next adds entered the fray. Otherwise he could only call for a retreat. The following seconds felt to him as if they dragged on for hours.

The sudden, violent death screeches of Ka’zir and Tek’ris were one of the most beautiful things the monk had ever heard in his life. At first, he couldn’t quite believe it, but it seemed like all their drills had payed off, enabling the rest of his troop to optimize and enhance their attacks far enough to finally overcome their foes.

The stunned silence following the death of the Aqir was broken by the triumphant howl of Valentian Blackwood, soon amplified by the cheerful yells of the rest of the raiding party and their support forces, who came running down the stairs from the entrance to the Hive. A huge tangle of embraces, hand shaking and shoulder clapping between the members of his troop followed, which mostly passed by Orthorin, who kept to himself, instead attentively surveying the work of the medical team and the support healer of his troop, who now first tended to their severely wounded; the mage and the demon hunter, and then went on to help the rest of the party to recover fully.

The monk felt uncommonly shaky after the strain of the battle and struggled more than usual to keep his exhaustion from showing, earning him some mocking laughter from the whispers of the Void in the back of his mind. The drills didn’t seem to be quite on the same level for healers than for the other fighters, since they didn’t wanted to seriously hurt their comrades in arms during the training. He still could feel the lingering, unpleasant burning in his limbs from the extensive usage of mana. He needed a drink desperately, being completely out of mana, and longed for a chance to sit down for a while to recover his magical powers at least partially.

The higher ranking members of the army present who now descended into the Hive and verged on him, dispelled his hopes for a moment of recreation, though, and so he scraped his remaining strength together and stepped towards them, back straight.

After some formal handshaking and congratulations, the army superiors soon hurried back to their posts, leaving the looting of the spoils to them. On the stairs, the Alliance officers crossed paths with the curious members of the Horde raiding party, who would have been the next ones to fight the two Aqir bosses and by now poured into the room, hoping to at least catch a few glances at the treasures hidden in the Hive.

When Orthorin turned his attention back towards the rest of his troop, he noticed that the soldiers had already searched the room. Blackwood was setting up the distribution of the loot together with Dewcloud, who always managed the accounting of their fighting unit. The monk was about to join them when another member of his raiding party stepped towards him.

“Could I have a minute, Sir?”, Talania asked, and continued after his permissive invitation. “Thanks Lieut, for deciding upon me to bring back to the fight.”

“Don’t mention it. It was a rational decision.” He suppressed a frown when the whispers reacted with a giggle to his explanation, although their amusement could also be triggered by his silent wish that this conversation wouldn’t take long, since he still hadn’t had the chance to get his hands on any water.

The female void elf stared at the floor unhappily. “I know, but… I’m sorry, I should have been able to doge most of the damage with a Dispersion in the first place. I was too slow.”

Orthorin managed a reassuring smile and swiftly thought of a solution to ease his soldier’s remorse. “If it makes you feel better, I can schedule a special drill for you, to train your reaction time.”

“Yes, please!”, Talania’s eyes lighted up in delight, “That would be appropriate!”

“As you wish. I’ll send Haaldar with you, so he can improve the handling of his Ice Block, too.”

The shadow priestess smiled in understanding, then nodded soberly and saluted, before taking off in the direction of her closest comrades in arms.

Quite relieved, since this little encounter had also dissipated his earlier concerns, the monk then joined his second in command for the allocation of the loot, that would be opened by his speech in praise of his troop and their achievement of today.

–.o.O.o.–

“Look at us. I still can’t quite believe it.” The worgen’s voice had a rough cast to it even though he was in his human form for once. “Captain and Lieutenant.” He drew deeply from his cigar and then blew a smokey cloud into the moonlit night sky. “The major from my old brigade is probably turning in his grave just from hearing the sound of it. He promised me I would never make it any further than private. And now: Lieutenant Valentian Blackwood.” He laughed loudly, the sound echoing across Lake Everstill in front of them. “I really like the sound of it!”

“Yeah”, Orthorin agreed with a smile, “Captain Orthorin Dawncaller doesn’t sound too bad either.” He cast a reassuring glance over his shoulder, back to the entrance of Lakeshire Inn where the officer’s feast was still ongoing. None of the others had stepped outside after them, so there was no need to take care with his words. He still kept his voice a little lower. “I just never would have anticipated it.”

A frown appeared on Valentian’s forehead, clearly visible in the warm light, which spilled out from the windows of the Inn onto the wooden pier they were standing on. “Why not? We did very well over the last months in Uldum as well as in Ny’alotha and taking down the Hivemind was quite something. I don’t think anyone expected us to be able to do that.”

“Indeed.”

Their raiding party had only been one of many varying general Alliance army forces. Their task inside Ny’alotha had never been to actually take down any foes. More so they had been there to show attendance, to help clear out weaker groups of minions inside the Waking City and to help the other Alliance parties, which worked full-time on that task, with the development of their combat strategies against these foes. That their party of _decoys_ , who had mainly been fighting to further expose the tactics of the enemy, had actually killed the Aqir bosses, had been a surprise to everyone.

“But still. It all came so suddenly. Our last promotion wasn’t that long ago. And I know that Marshal Northweather doesn’t like either one of us”, the monk added for consideration.

Despite everything, his and Blackwood’s reward appeared out of place to him. It would have been a different story if their troop had taken out N’Zoth himself, but they hadn’t even been assigned to fight against a foe of this power. That feat had been achieved by other, better qualified fighters. After the battle against the Aqir, Orthorin and his troop had only been involved in one other fight inside Ny’alotha, but to bring down the corrupted dragon Vexiona had proved to be a little too challenging even for them.

“Oh, forget about Northweather. She’s just a jealous prick who feels threatened by our success. But as long as we don’t cross any rules, she can’t do anything against us.” Valentian blew out another plume of smoke, which hovered for a short time over the quiet water of the lake before it was blown away by a mild gust of early autumn wind. “She probably even tried to prevent us from climbing the ranks, but was outvoted by the other officers.”

“Maybe.” Orthorin still wasn’t convinced.

What worried him more than their additional promotion shortly after the last one was the circumstance that it was linked to the establishment of a special company, smaller than a common one, with him and Blackwood as first and second officers, that was under the command of the Marshal. The move had been justified exactly with their lack of experience and duration of term of service, but that they were still given their own company, which was newly assembled for this cause, sounded fishy to the monk.

_What is it that you fear? Aren’t you up to the task? There’s no shame in that_ , the whispers crooned softly. _You can walk back in to the other officers and tell them that you feel your promotion is undue. Better than to fail miserably later on, don’t you think? Just admit to them that you aren’t good enough._ No! He definitely wouldn’t do that. Stupid whispers.

He pulled himself together, shaking off the taunting voices in his mind and let his gaze wander across the opposing waterside, where the temporary encampment of the assembled army forces lay sprawled out widely around the few stone built military barracks, which were occupied by the higher ranking members. Tent lanterns and campfires marked the position of the common soldiers, while the wind and late evening silence carried the sounds of the festivities – laughter, talk and music – out into the dark.

“Anyway, I’ll head over to the barracks now.”

“You’re sure you won’t come back inside?”, the worgen asked, stubbing out his cigar on the metal covered post of the pier next to him. “I know the celebrations aren’t only in our honor, but mostly because that big ugly squid of an Old God got finally squashed, but still. There really is no hurry to go back to work on an evening like that.”

“I’m not _going_ _back to work_ ”, Orthorin corrected his second’s words, “I only want to take a short look at those files. They should have been delivered to my room by now. I’m curious about what awaits us with our new company. Aren’t you?”

“Sure. But there will be enough time for that after the official announcement tomorrow.” He drew a hand through his curly, dark hair and shrugged. “I, at least, plan on getting myself totally stuffed on officers food and beer tonight. That before was only the appetizer. But I guess I’ll have to try another time to finally get you drunk for once.”

“That’s never going to happen”, the monk automatically stated, like every time before when the worgen had brought up this topic between them. “And I really don’t think that would be a good idea. With the whispers in my head, I can’t afford such follies.”

As always, Blackwood laughed dismissively. “Oh, c’mon, I haven’t ever seen you having troubles with them. To loosen up a little and have some fun once in a while would do you good.” He gave the void elf an amicable nudge to the ribs with his elbow, teasing: “I’m absolutely confident you wouldn’t suddenly snap because of that and start turning us into tentacle monsters or some such.”

“Who knows.” Orthorin ignored Blackwood’s skeptically raised eyebrow in answer to his words. “Either way, I’ve never understood what’s supposed to be fun about getting yourself wasted. To lose your self-control and embarrass yourself in the process, only to be rewarded by nausea and a crushing headache the next morning, doesn’t sound fun to me at all.”

The worgen laughed once more, as if he’d just made an excellent joke. “Because that’s not the point of it, only an… unfortunate byproduct. And also only sometimes.” As if to illustrate Valentian’s explanation, noticeably tipsy guffaw sounded from inside the Inn behind them, muffled by the glass windows. “To get drunk is about relaxing, to do silly stuff you usually wouldn’t do and to make good memories together with your friends.”

“Memories you can’t even recall half of the time later on”, Orthorin noted disdainfully.

Blackwood shook his head, chuckling: “You’re hopeless.”

“See? So there’s no point for me in staying here any longer”, the monk threw up his hands in mock-indignation, and then gave his new soon-to-be lieutenant a short salute, before he took off. “Have a good evening. I’ll see you tomorrow during the morning assembly.”

Instead of crossing the bridge like on their way to the inn, Orthorin turned to the other side. Even though it was faint, the moonlight was enough for him to find his path; first up the hill to the herbalist’s house, then through her garden and afterwards down across the dairy pastures at the lakefront. He’d just spotted a distant campfire with some figures sitting around it beside the small graveyard, which was located right behind the military barrack that was his target when an agitated female voice rang out not far off to his left.

“I can’t believe it! She is doing this on purpose!” An Arcane Explosion suddenly turned the night to day in a local area a little further down the slope of the lake, illuminating a night elf with long, unruly white hair in its center, and two other figures standing near her. “I haven’t joined the army to follow the orders of some frigging blood elf scum! I’m here to kill the damn Horde!”

Curiously, Orthorin halted and ducked a little deeper into the shadows of the vegetation around him.

“Well, he’s a _void_ elf, not a blood elf… they are on our side, you know?”, a rather young human voice rang out, followed by a noisy spit.

The mage gave an unladylike snort. “Oh please, as if there was any real difference between them.” Another angry Explosion lit up the darkness, but strangely without touching the still black eyes of the female elf. “Those so-called void elves are just Horde spies that managed to turn our dear Anduin’s head.”

Two additional Explosion followed, the last one a little wider than the previous ones, almost brushing the tall, thin human and the shorter figure; a dark iron dwarf by the looks of her slightly glowing hair, which reminded the monk of embers.

“Light! Chill out, Ela!”, the male figure called out nervously, turning invisible for a brief moment, “If you keep yelling and exploding like that, you’re going to alarm the whole damn camp!”

“And I would keep my voice down if I were ye, while talking like that about King Wrynn”, the small, curvy figure added, pointing into the direction of the campfire and illuminated by yet another Explosion, “Some o’ our friends back there are quite fond o’ our boy-king.”

The night elf didn’t seem to hear their words, though.

“I’m going to Blast that stupid captain’s head off, if he ever gives me a chance!”, she growled, still in a frenzy and flashing with arcane power.

That confirmed the strong suspicion he’d already had. Orthorin’s heart was suddenly beating a little faster. He wasn’t actually worried about himself, he could probably deal with those three in a brawl if he had to, but he still hoped the foliage around him obscured him from their sight. Fights like that weren’t good for anyone’s reputation.

The robed dwarf tsk-ed in disapproval. “I would wait with that until ye have at least some evidence fer yer accusations, or ye soon won’t be able tae kill any Horde anymore.”

“Yeah, because your pretty little ass will be locked into a cell at the stockades”, the rogue agreed, “Although, I could probably get you out. But I hadn’t planned on becoming a full outlaw. At least not yet.”

The night elf sighed, finally appearing as if her companion’s words had some effect on her. The glow of arcane energy around her faded. “Why did you have to tell me that, Sura?! Now I’m not going to sleep a wink for this whole blasted night!”

“Do ye really have tae ask me that?”, the dwarf inquired rhetorically, “I mean, look at yer reaction. Ye should thank me and my Eye of Kilrogg fer sparing us this scene tomorrow at the assembly. Now ye at least have some time tae get a hold of yerself, before ye end up digging latrines fer the next year… or worse.”

The rogue suddenly laughed, slapping his knee. “But that’s so embarrassing. I mean, you were seriously able to spy on our officers with your little warlock trick?”

“Yeah. Works out on and off”, Sura admitted, “But I don’t think it would have succeeded that easily if I were a Horde warlock… or if we weren’t celebrating N’Zoth’s downfall.”

At that point, Orthorin stopped his eavesdropping and continued on his path, past the three people down at the lake and the others further up at the campfire. He kept himself close to the shadows of trees and bushes, like way back during his early rogue training. He wasn’t as stealthy anymore as during those times, but thanks to the darkness of the late evening and his carefulness, he reached the officer’s barrack without getting noticed.

He didn’t intend to already give the white haired night elf a chance to try and realize her threats. He definitely would need to keep an eye on her, though. Since he wasn’t officially her superior yet, he couldn’t penalize her for her words, but he could learn from them and act accordingly in the future.

The interior of the barrack was almost completely deserted, since all the officers were either at the feast in Lakeshire Inn or outdoors celebrating with their troop. Only a few squires scurried through the building, performing some tasks given by their superiors and keeping the place in order.

When Orthorin reached the room which had been assigned to him, he took one of the oil lamps next to the door from its holder to light the candles inside with its steady flame, before he hung it back outside and closed the door behind himself. Only then he allowed himself a relieved sigh for having escaped the festivities. Although, they weren’t the actual problem. Strictly speaking he’d grown troubled by the prospect of more conversations like the one with Valentian Blackwood just before his departure; their discussion had grown far too personal, a problem arising rather quickly if one spent too much time with people in a relaxed environment. He couldn’t allow the worgen – or anybody else – to start thinking of him as something more than a comrade in arms. After all, they were soldiers, death was part of their business and did not go well with friendship.

Also feeling his ever looming tiredness catching up to him, Orthorin removed his uniform and switched into a plain shirt and trousers for the night. When he was completely ready for bed, he moved back to the wooden desk in front of the little window on the right side of the room. As hoped, a new stack of papers had appeared there, identifiable as personal records. The members of his soon-to-be company. His bedtime reading.

He sat down and slowly skimmed the pages in the dim candle light. At first, he didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary, but then he detected that far more files than normalhad subsequently added notes to them. Most of them were general ones – about lacking discipline, a tendency to brawling or recalcitrance – but some profiles especially caught the monks eye. The skilled demon hunter weapon master had developed a fel allergy, leaving him bed-ridden for several hours after every meal. The marksman was deaf, which made it difficult to give her any orders on the fly. The draenei shaman healer had a serious drinking problem, ending up passed out at some point in most battles. The dark iron dwarf warlock lacked proper respect for any authority, already having been punished several times for snooping around or backtalk... that sounded familiar.Oh yes, he definitely recognized the picture of the rogue; pushed into army service prematurely to pay off gambling debts and in the habit of stealing everything that wasn’t nailed down, denying any guilt if caught later on. And, last but not least; the… explosive white haired night elf whose full name was _Elarynn Moonsong_ according to the paper in front of him. Orthorin only flipped through the first few added lines of her record before he pushed it and the others back into the file with a soft groan.

A faint throb set in somewhere behind the bridge of his nose and his eyes. The monk leaned back in his chair and gently rubbed the spot with one hand, although he already knew this wouldn’t prevent the beginning headache from growing worse during the next hours.

His apprehensions regarding the special company that would be given to him and Blackwood seemed to have been more than justified; it looked like Marshal Giuletta Northweather had gathered up every last one of her problem soldiers and had allocated them to him and the worgen. But could he do anything to prevent this?

_Afraid to fail, after all?_ The whispers mocked immediately, their low voices rising and falling in time with the throbbing behind his forehead. _You can still return to the Inn. There’s still time; nothing’s official yet. Go back and tell them you can’t do it. Yes, dear Umbric and Alleria would probably be a little disappointed if they hear of your refusal._ _I_ _t was to be expected that a ren’dorei would have to deal with some extra… challenges_ _with_ _in the army._ _You knew this, too, didn’t you? B_ _ut in contrast to your brothers, you’ve already achieved so much. Go on,_ _don’t be shy. E_ _veryone has to admit his own weakness now and then._

No, he could do this! He determinedly lowered his hand, forming it into a fist instead. He’d managed to turn Blackwood into a good soldier. Why shouldn’t it be possible for him to do the same with a whole company of people? It would take some time, no doubt, but with N’Zoth’s defeat, no pressing matters were at hand anymore, so that wasn’t a problem. Still, the next months sure promised to become a challenge… but he’d never been one to reject those.

All the more reason to finally retire for the night, though. With a little luck, he could at least sleep through the worst part of the headache, sparing him the inconvenient nausea which normally accompanied it. Otherwise he just as well could have stayed at Lakeshire Inn, realizing the worgen’s proposal. And maybe, just maybe he would wake up tomorrow morning in a world finally freed of the Old God’s influence, feeling actually restored.

With that, Orthorin rose and doused the candles on the working desk, dipping the room in darkness, before he took off his eye-patch, leaving it lying on the file of papers. Thanks to the night vision granted by his up until now covered eye, he had no trouble finding his way to the bed in the back of the room.

As usual, sleep wasn’t long in coming, soon taking him into a warm embrace and whispering dreams of long past times in his ears. _The laughter of children echoed through the woods. His own. Saewron’s. And Inean’s. The two of them giggling as much as their older brother while they tickled him, all three of them frolicking on the ground covered in gold_ _en_ _and red leaves. Their delight was reflected in their parents’ chuckles, when the two older sin’dorei caught up with them_ _not having_ _joined the wild chase of their offspring. “Stop that, you two scallywags. Let him catch his breath!”, their mother chided softly, pulling him and his twin into her_ _loving_ _arms. Their father smiled widely, lending his eldest son a hand and lifting him from the floor, then tousling his hair. “I could have thrown them off whenever I wanted!”, Inean proclaimed,_ _stamping his foot_ _and_ _sticking_ _his tongue out at his little brothers,_ _his deliberately exaggerated indignation_ _making all of them laugh again._


End file.
